PURPOSE As our society has been facing a decline in birth rate, the elementary school childcare program is of growing importance in Korean society. This study aims at providing an overview of the research trend on the elementary school childcare program and strengthening the collegiate effort of academia to improve the related litearture using Text Network Analysis (TNA).
CONTENTS Drawn upon kewords and abstracts from 95 refereed Korean journal Articles published between 2004 and 2022, a frequency analysis, topic modeling (LDA), word cloud, and topic mapping were conducted using NetMiner 4.
RESULTS The result of this study is as follows. The number of annual publications is increasing with a variety of topics such as policy, implementation, improvement, and diversification of programs, along with more extended research focus towards the overall afterschool childcare system, childcare staff members, extended to more practical, quality-related topics, reflecting changes of policies and students‘ diverse needs. More research should be conducted to address the stabilization of the policy through legislation and the successful operation responsive to public needs.